Novellas totally do not get enough love here on Good Books  & Good Wine and that kind of sucks because novellas are awesome. They are quick to read and usually unencumbered by bogged down prose, but straight to the point and the action. Like, in a novella you truly do have to cut the crap in order to tell a tightly focused story. When Allison at The Allure Of Books pointed Legion by Brandon Sanderson out to me and mentioned it was a free download on Audible.com, I immediately hopped over and snapped it up because I have loved every single book that I’ve read by Brandon Sanderson, so I figured I would enjoy this one too. Y’all, the audiobook of Legion by Brandon Sanderson was superb Dewey Readathon listening.
Legion’s plot is kind of hard for me to explain but, here goes. Okay, so main character Stephen Leeds has this bizarre disorder where he hallucinates various personalities and people who have mastery of certain skills. These people are called aspects and they help Leeds solve cases. Leeds and his hallucinations are on the search for Balubal Razon, this missing guy who invented a camera that is magic and has the power to change human history, so finding him is kind of a big deal. The novella starts out in Leeds’ mansion in America, but my favorite bits are when they are on a plane bound for Jerusalem. It’s a fairly intelligent read that asks some big questions.
I enjoyed Legion. Granted, I did find some bits of it confusing, but I think that had this been a driving listen for me, rather than a readathon listen, then I might not have been so confused. As always, I thought Sanderson’s writing was top notch and not boring. The imagination involved and the detail that went into each of the characters — Stephen Leeds as well as his aspects were astounding. Not only does Legion have a cool plot, but it also has fascinating, multi-faceted characters. Typical Sanderson though, and I definitely mean that in the best possible way.
The audiobook version of Legion is produced by Dragonsteel Entertainment. It is narrated by Oliver Wyman who is quite competent and does a wonderful job providing different voices for each of the aspects. I imagine that I would not mind listening to a full book narrated by Wyman. The duration is only 2 hours and 8 minutes, so this audiobook is definitely not a waste of time, nor does it feel like it takes FOREVER to get through. I’d definitely recommend  downloading this audio, and at the cost of free until 12/31/12, why not?
Disclosure:Â This was a freebie on Audible
Other reviews of Legion by Brandon Sanderson:
Fyrefly’s Book Blog – “a solid, thought-provoking story”
Reading And Running – “I liked seeing him write in a different genre”
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Here’s to you for posting a novella review AND an audiobook review!
This sounds like it has a lot of things going on, but somehow manages to keep it tightly written and moving. Love it a lot.
I was given a random Brandon Sanderson book in a panel once, but I didn’t really know who he was, and I haven’t read it. Maybe it was part of a series? I dunno, but whatever the reason (probably the cover or title) I wasn’t really interested, and it’s buried somewhere. Or maybe I donated it to the library. But lately I’ve been wanting to see if I still have it and give it a try. (Like I have time right now…)
I love Brandon Sanderson!
It’s funny that you love novellas. I usually do not like them. Or, maybe, what I don’t like is that they’re generally snippets from a series that just didn’t fit in the book or wasn’t good enough, so they were made a novella to get more money out of readers. RANT OVER.
Basically, though, a novella that’s just a short novel, I could be all over.
I didn’t know about this one, but I went and ‘purchased’ on Audible. Thanks for the heads up!
Free? Check.
Audiobook? Check.
Brandon Sanderson? Check.
Recommended? Check.
Downloaded.
This is definitely a good novella worth the time, and made for an awesome readathon pick!
I am telling you though – THE EMPEROR’S SOUL, April. You gotta read it.